Monday, July 10, 2006
Community College Librarianship
I was recently speaking with a peer in my library program who said she heard taking her first librarian position at a community college made it more difficult for a friend to get a position in a traditional academic library later. Has anyone else heard about or had experience with this? I would be interested to know since this seems to be a growing area of librarianship.
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4 comments:
The academic library world is weird this way. I at least know of a bias against public librarians trying to get into academic librarianship. An academic librarian with years of experience who has been responsible for hiring admitted this to me. :-(
Sad to say, it wouldn't surprise me. I'd like to tell you that you wouldn't want to work anywhere that thought that way, but that isn't entirely helpful, so instead I'll say this- do good work, be innovative, progressive and professional and you will find yourself in demand wherever you want to go.
I wonder if coming from a similar type of institution makes it easier for a search committee to read between the lines and assume a "fit" for a similar institution. But what a shame - especially when you realize how much you have to constantly learn. What you need to hire for is curiosity, creativity, receptiveness to patron needs... screening by type of library seems unfortunate, especially given all the things you can learn from each other.
Sadly, I'm not in "demand" here in RI. I can't find a full-time job to save myself. And, though my desire was to be an academic librarian, I fully expect that my current part-time job as a YA librarian will make me nearly unemployable as anything but a YA librarian (which I am good at,and I like, but it's not my dream...).
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